What Role for Vocational Skills? The Higher Education Bias of EU Action for the Knowledge Economy

The awareness of the necessity to adapt to the knowledge economy has been ever-present in the Europe-an debate, as greatly encapsulated by von der Leyen’s announcement that 2023 will be the “European year of skills”. This adaptation, however, contains an interesting paradox. While vocational education and training (VET) has been an area of Community action since the Treaty of Rome, the EU has only been allowed to support Member States’ policy action in (higher) education policies. However, the EU sup-ports policy more widely and successfully in the area of higher education (HE) than in VET. As a result, EU-level efforts in the area of VET policy such as the European Credit System for VET (ECVET) have experienced failures, while in the area of HE, the EU has succeeded to foster a community approach with joint financial and legal instruments. This article analyses why and how European integration has developed differently in the areas of HE and VET. It takes the perspective of supranationalist theory and relies on (archival) EU documents and interviews with EU-level decision makers, bureaucrats and interest group representatives. Using the three components of supranationalism – transnational exchange, EU rules, supranational organisation – the article compares credit transfer systems (EU rules), student mobility (transnational exchange) and EU funding and EU-level lobbying (supranational organisation) in the two areas. It argues that even though EU rules in the area of VET have been strengthened, transnational society has remained weak. A more coherent transnational society in the area of HE policy has instead led to a stronger development of supranational organization.